Avatar: Fire and Ice
by One Thousand Rains
Summary: Air. Water. Earth. Fire. For 8000 years, the Avatar maintained the balance between the four nations and the spirits. Then the Ice Age set in. The Mughoul Hordes, benders of Ice and Blood, brought death wherever they went. Even the Avatar, master of all four elements, couldn't stop them... AKA the tale of the unnamed female Fire Avatar who preceded Jafar and Roku. [Book One: Fire]


**Let's see how well this does. Here's to hoping that I get even a half-decent response. All the Avatars mentioned are actually canon, seen as Avatar statues or as flashbacks when Aang accesses the Avatar State. Or their appearances are, anyways, I did the rest. The female Fire Nation Avatar before the male one (a.k.a. Avatar Jafar) before Avatar Roku always made me curious, so this is my take on telling her tale. In the LoK scene (and I hate LoK, Korra doesn't exist to me) where Korra sees all the past Avatars, the Avatar I named Mahita is standing exactly behind Aang. This takes place around 1500 years before Avatar Aang's time, and around 8000 years after Avatar Wan's, so naturally the world is a very different (and strange) place.  
**

* * *

 **The Avatar Cycle:**

Avatar **Wan** (Fire) → ... Unnamed Male Fire Avatar (named **Simurgh** here) → Unnamed Male Air Avatar (named **Norbu** here) → Unnamed Female Water Avatar ( _aka Zelda_ , named **Kiara** here) → Unnamed Male Earth Avatar (named **Liang** here) → Unnamed Female Fire Avatar (named **Mahita** here) → Unnamed Male Air Avatar → Unnamed Male Water Avatar → Unnamed Male Earth Avatar ( _aka Fat Old Man with big white beard_ ) → Unnamed Male Fire Avatar ( _aka Lavabender, Jafar_ ) → Avatar **Yangchen** (Air) → Avatar **Kuruk** (Water) → Avatar **Kyoshi** (Earth) → Avatar **Roku** (Fire) → Avatar **Aang** (Air)

 _(_ _according to canon lore, featured statues and Avatar State flashbacks)_

* * *

 **The Jasmine Dragon  
The Hundred Year War era**

The banished Prince of the Fire Nation sighed as he sat down on an empty seat in the traditional tea shop that his Uncle owned and operated, having just finished cleaning up the place. The Jasmine Dragon, normally a hub for the Upper Ring's finest, was today uncharacteristically empty. That was largely because of the Bear Festival taking place today at the Earth King's behest, which most of the aristocratic society were attending. Zuko, now on the path of self-renewal and rediscovering himself, realised that clear days such as today gifted him with rare moments of contemplation. 'Reflection is the crown of meditation', his sagely Uncle often said, and the tranquillity he felt ever since he had given up on his wild Avatar chase and joined his Uncle at his tea shop had led him to rediscover the wonder of reflection for himself.

Yet, as they were wont to do, his thoughts found themselves betraying him and going back to the Avatar. As he mentally incubated the arrow-headed boy and his struggle against the Fire Nation, his thoughts meandered into a whole new plane, one that he had not visited before.

"What is the matter, prince Zuko? You seem troubled," his Uncle offered consolingly as he walked up to the boy, warming a cup of Jasmine tea in his hands.

"Just thinking about the Avatar, Uncle," Zuko responded absently.

Iroh sighed. He loved his nephew, even more so after the transformation he had undergone upon coming to terms with himself after his illness, so seeing Zuko revisiting that painful trail was not something he wished upon the boy.

Zuko noticed his Uncle's saddening visage and he clarified himself, "Not the boy, Uncle. The concept," he paused, watching Iroh gaze at him awaiting an explanation, which he supplied, "I was just thinking how the Avatar always stopped the Fire Nation from expanding, from progress and from sharing our advancements with the other nations. That's what... Father used to say forced Great-Grandfather Sozin's hand in the first place, to do what he did. The Avatar is supposed to bring balance to the world, right? Yet throughout history, it seems he's always held the Fire Nation back."

Iroh sighed at the obvious Fire Nation propaganda his nephew had been subject to, before deciding it was time to teach the boy a valuable lesson.

The best of lessons were taught in stories, after all.

Sitting down in the empty seat opposite his nephew's, the former Dragon of the West took a sip of his soothing tea before beginning. "My young nephew, would it interest you to know that it was an _Avatar_ that _made_ the Fire Nation a 'nation' in the first place, and pretty much carved the whole world anew while she was at it?"

" _She_?" Zuko asked, intrigued. "I'm assuming you aren't referring to Avatar Roku, then."

Iroh smiled at the child-like, almost hungry look in his nephew's eyes, both the pristine and the scarred, and continued. "Oh no, Roku was born _in_ the Fire Nation. This was long before Roku. Let me tell you a true story, one that your history tutors would never have taught you. This is the story of the dawn of the Fire Nation: the legend of Fire and Ice..."

* * *

 _(Uncle Iroh's Voice:)_

 ** _Air._**

 ** _Water._**

 _ **Earth.**_

 _ **Fire.**_

 _Long ago, the Avatar maintained the balance between the four nations and the spirit world. Then the **Ice Age** set in. Enormous ice masses covered huge swathes of land. Huge regions where hundreds of millions of people lived became completely uninhabitable overnight. The water tribes, scattered throughout the North East and East, united under one leader, Kinghes, to form the Mughoul Hordes, the largest contiguous land empire in history._

 _Their powers permanently boosted by the frozen terrain,_ _they spread terror, panic, death and destruction wherever they went. Even the Avatar, master of all four elements, couldn't stop them..._

* * *

 **Book One: Fire (** **火** **)  
** _ **Chapter One  
**_ **The Servant Girl**

* * *

"Mahita! Don't you slack off on sweeping the veranda this time!"

The voice of her lady, thinned out over the bone-chilling mist, reached the ears of the young teen and she let out a sigh. Her breath visible in the mist, she gently swiped a lock of ebony-coloured hair out of her eyes as she picked up the _jhaaroo_ \- a sweeping brush, made of straw and twigs - and got down into a crouch.

"On it, Baji!" she called back.

The breeze picked up momentarily and she shuddered in the cold, hugging her thin rags as her teeth clattered. Through the chill she glanced, cravingly, towards the brick house in the veranda of which she sat crouched. A modest-sized cube of bricks, bathed in an orange hue, heat-bestowing flames visible through the arched, hemicircular window, beneficent to the lord and lady of the brick house, yet scornfully depriving her of their warmth.

The cool breeze numbed her bones again, and her head turned to glance up at the sky, the Sun a barely visible, starving yellow disc through the mist, but resting just over the horizon.

It was already cold, and it would be dark soon. Which meant it was only going to get colder.

Trembling chest rising and falling in a foggy sigh, Mahita decided it was best to get her task done as quickly as possible. The veranda was filled with the scratching, grating sound of her _jhaaroo_ sweeping ruthlessly across the ground. Dirt, trash, twigs and fallen leaves alike were powerless against the onslaught of her diligent sweeping.

It took ten minutes. Ten excruciatingly cold, long minutes, but her lady's veranda was as clean as it could be with a straw-broom.

Standing up, she returned the cleaning equipment to the backyard of the house, before her shivering form knocked on the door twice.

Footsteps shuffled and the door opened.

"All done, Baji," her voice quivered as she hugged herself tight at the doorstep of her lady, 'baji' - meaning 'sister' - her respectful form of address to her. Not that 'Baji' had ever returned her respect with anything more than a cold shoulder. Not so much as a kind word in the last five years Mahita had been serving her. In any case, 'Baji' went back inside to fetch a few silver coins from her purse, and Mahita's shawl which she had left in the house when she had cleaned it up earlier that day. The two items of importance to Mahita - her daily wage, and her only defense against the harsh cold and the lusting eyes of strange men - were promptly shoved into her hands by the chubby lady who owned the house.

"Here, now off you go!"

And the door slammed shut in her face.

Restraining a sad sigh, the brunette with shoulder length hair, olive-coloured skin, and sharp gold eyes typical to the inhabitants of the Fire Hamlets garbed herself in her winter shawl. With expertise garnered through years of practice, she twisted the upper portion into a makeshift hood and face veil, thus concealing her face sans her eyes from view. The rest of the maroon garment, lined by a glossy golden lace, flowed over form to conceal her lithe frame down to her shins. Thus only her eyes, her ankles - the left adorned with a silver anklet - and her unshod, muddy, thin but callused feet were visible to the world at large.

The cold earth stung her feet as she exited the vicinity of her lord and lady's small, cuboid dwelling, but she had never worn a shoe in all her fifteen years (shoes were a luxury someone of her social status simply couldn't afford) so saying that she was used to it was an understatement. Just another day in her less-than-elegant routine: she got up at dawn, cleaned up around the small straw hut she lived in, made breakfast for herself and some pastries to sell, tried (with debatable success) to sell those pastries around the hamlet til mid-morning, and then came here to clean up her lady's house til the sun set. The lady's husband was a merchant, and so she, unlike Mahita, was plump and guaranteed three meals a day.

Short of the Chaudhary - the chieftain - of the Hamlet, that was a luxury very few here could afford. Certainly not Mahita. Since Nanna - her grandmother - died and she inherited the tiny hut she lived in, she had been forced to work for others to ensure her daily bread. Nanna had worked for the lady and the lady's mother-in-law before her death, so in Mahita's small and unpredictable world she would rather not work for anyone else, no matter if her lady was a terrible slave-driver. At least Mahita knew what to expect of her - who knew what another mistress would be like.

The world outside Mahita's own was a terrible place. It had claimed her parents' lives, after all. Mahita was a clanless orphan from a tiny hamlet on a small island at the edge of the Fire Archipelago. She didn't have an ideal life so far, so it was natural that she often dreamed of what lay outside her little world. Not that she didn't already know: there were bigger hamlets than her nameless one out there, some large enough to be considered villages. Only one settlement - a named one, Dehali - was large enough to cover an entire island, the one at the centre of the archipelago.

Plus there were other peoples outside the Fire Hamlets that Mahita generally knew about. She had once heard her lady's husband in passing refer to meeting a travelling monk who could bend Air.

She knew that a large portion of the central continent where the Earthbenders had resided for millennia had frozen over and was claimed by the Mughouls of the East. What was left of them had all taken refuge in three small Earth fiefdoms, styled the Kingdom of Ba, the Kingdom of Sing, and the Kingdom of Se, each with a ruler they referred to as a 'Gōng'. She had heard that Avatar Liang, the Avatar of the age, had tried to bring the three Earth Gōngs together to fight against the Mughouls, but no one seemed to want to confront the Mughouls, not even under the leadership of the ageing Avatar, who despite being in his sixth decade had yet to learn beyond the basics of Waterbending. The Mughouls had ensured that the Avatar could never learn bending their element. No one dared oppose Qubrai Khan; he was rumoured to be even more bloodthirsty than his grandfather, Kinghes.

Mahita thought, with a frightful shudder, of the sanguinary Mughouls, benders of Ice and Blood. Their Hordes swept across the world for the first time over seventy years ago, at the dawn of the Ice Age. The Hordes collectively controlled three-quarters of the globe - rendered a frozen, bloody wasteland. She had heard that before the Ice Age, the Fire Hamlets she grew up in were lit in summer, instead of being drenched in perpetual cold and mist like they were now.

The Mughouls were simply monsters. It is said that Kinghes Khan - the first warlord to unite the Waterbending Mughoul tribes - had done so after crushing their Avatar's windpipe with his bare hands, before bending all the blood out of her corpse into a bottle and then drinking it all in portions for a month, using the deceased Avatar's own skull as a cup. She was the young - still a virgin - Avatar Kiara; the Water Avatar before Liang of Earth, acclaimed for her mastery of the elements and even more so for her dark-skinned and sapphire-eyed beauty. It was said that even the spirits considered her to be the most beautiful Avatar ever born. Legend has it that even Koh the Face Stealer shied away from her, and could not bring himself to steal her face even when she smiled straight at him, so dazzling was she.

It was but her misfortune that she was the one thorn in Kinghes Khan's side. So Kinghes Khan demonstrated to the whole world how he dealt with thorns, no matter how innocent or pretty or young they were.

Around two decades after her demise Avatar Liang, the successor of Kiara, rose and fought against the Mughouls. Yet with the Three Earth Fiefdoms of Ba, Sing and Se in perpetual war with each other; with the Fire Hamlets too far away and feeling largely safe on their distant islands; and the fact that Liang was able to use only three of the four elements effectively in combat, his success against Mughouls over the past four decades had been abysmal.

This far out to the West, to Mahita, all these were but stories that she had heard. Hearsay. Some, such as those of Kinghes, were what her grandmother used to keep her in line as a child. Others, she overheard as news her lady's husband told to her lady, or via other channels of word-of-mouth.

An untamed spirit of adventure inside her protested the life she had lived for the past fifteen years. It wanted to go out there, to set out on a journey to a greater world, to distinguish fact from myth by herself.

A naive little spirit, one that Mahita knew could get her killed out there. Or worse, land her in the clutches of Mughoul Hordes, if they were real. She had heard what a Mughoul did to women and young girls, and seen it all too, in many a nightmare.

No, sir-e. She was fine here, an unknown servant girl in a nameless settlement in the Westernmost island of the Fire Hamlets, as far away as humanly possible from the Mughoul Hordes.

The shawl-garbed girl came upon a river and changed direction, proceeding along the bank in the direction the water flowed. A thin, but sturdy, wooden rope bridge came into view, it only a couple of meters away from her but the farthest thing visible through the cool mist.

The Sun had finally disappeared over the horizon, the evening light dimmed even further by the mist. It was hardly a bother to Mahita, however. Having taken this route every day of her life since she could walk, she could probably cross the bridge blindfolded. She even subconsciously knew how much it shook by her weight, and how much the ancient timber screeched with each step she took.

Which was why, when she was halfway across and felt the bridge trembling more than it should have for her weight, did she realised she was being followed.

"Shit!" Mahita cursed under her breadth before breaking into a run, the world shaking violently under her and causing whoever was behind her to lose their balance.

"HEY!" the shadow said as it fell, and Mahita spared a glance over his shoulder at him.

A man. Great. Even when she was veiled these beasts would try to take advantage of the lone woman trying to go home in the dark after trying to earn a living all day.

Mahita fought against the Universe to maintain her balance as she double-timed off the bridge onto the other side of the river.

She ran, and the man behind her screamed at her to stop and followed.

Mahita didn't want to lead her pursuer to her hut; it was the only place she had to live, after all, and the last thing she wanted was for the strange thug to find out that she lived alone. So, Mahita turned sharply and began to ascend a hillside.

"Get back here, you bitch!" his horrible, guttural voice seemed even closer than before.

Mahita was not scared. Hardly; she had grown up like this, she had dealt with bastards like this one for a while now. She was simply leading him as far away from her hut as possible.

Unbeknownst to her, a sharp pebble came under her unshod right foot in the darkness.

"Ah!" she screamed, stumbling and falling onto her knees. Opening her eyes through the pain in her foot, the first thing she saw was a thin, staff-like discarded tree branch in the autumn leaves beside her.

"GOT YOU!" the man shouted as he grabbed the fallen girl's shawl from behind and pulled it off, revealing her in her patched brick-red rags.

Thinking fast, Mahita picked up the branch from the ground and twisting it like a makeshift bo-staff, slammed its distal end across the man's cheeks with such force that, despite him being a good six inches taller than her and quite bulky, he shot through the air and landed roughly, back-first, against a large rock.

Undeterred, Mahita held the stick in her hand in a formless battle stance, ready to fight for life. And, quite possibly, her virginity.

"Damn bitch," the man muttered as he stood up, one hand over his bleeding jaw and bruising cheek. She did not recognise him as anyone she knew in the hamlet, and she knew everybody in the hamlet. This meant he was a traveller, and the money pouches, the sheathed machete and the rough, unkempt appearance all pointed towards him being a bandit.

Then, he started laughing. "You don't even know how to use that thing, do you?"

Mahita simply glared at him, holding the stick close.

"Tche," he scoffed, as if amused despite his bleeding jaw, before he spat some blood to his and pulled out his machete. "Look here girl, even though you hit me, you're pretty, and I'm a nice guy. Tell you what, you give me that," he unsheathed his machete and pointed it at the sparkling silver anklet around her left malleolus, "and some good time, and I won't kill you. Or, I could do make you do all that by force and then kill you. Your choice."

Mahita sneered at him in response, her grip around the stick tightening.

Her anklet was the only thing she had on her in terms of material possession. A great-great-grandfather had made it, and given to his wife as a wedding gift, and it was passed down from mother to daughter or daughter-in-law in her family for five generations. Her grandmother had plucked it off her mother's deceased body and held onto it until Mahita was old enough to wear it, and it had been her's since.

Yes, it was expensive, made of pure silver, and studded with rare jewels. It was the only thing she possessed of worth. But she would die of starvation before she parted with her heirloom.

"Heh, you're a fighter are ya?" the man cackled at seeing the determined look in her eyes. "Not even a speck of fear in those pretty eyes o' ye. That's rare for a girl around these parts… heck, it's rare for a _guy_ around these parts!"

Mahita's eyes narrowed, her heart thundered against her chest and she twirled the staff around in her hands as the man gave a horrific battle cry and charged at her, his machete ready to slice clean through her unimpressive weapon of choice.

She knew she couldn't get out of this in one piece, but at least she could face Nanna in the Spirit World and tell her she died with honor: keeping her honest living, keeping her virginity and keeping her silver heirloom all till death.

"FIREBENDERS, RUN! **AAARRGHHHH**!" the blood-curling scream followed the last words of a man incinerated to death, came from downhill and stopped both Mahita and her assailant in their tracks. Her eyes widened as an orange hue came upon them both, multiple gigantic Sun-like orbs of flame rising high into the air and raining down towards them both.

" **AAARRRRRRH**!" one of the fire balls found Mahita's assailant, and she watched in morbid horror as his flesh peeled off his body before he fell back in a charred, black heap, the fire spreading from his body and merging with the other fireballs, springing off the grass and trees around them to create a wildfire.

"*cough*-I need to get *hack*-" Mahita's words died in her mouth as she saw the circle of flames around her, slowly approaching.

Seeing the Fire, this close, something changed in Mahita. Something inside her, something primitive, told her wasn't meant to be this way, that she was the mistress of the fire, not the fire of her. As the images of the orange flames burning around her reflected off her gold irises, her palms somehow rose towards the flames on their own and, with a will that came out of nowhere and fueled by all the frustration accumulated during this really, really bad day she was having, she commanded the flames to part as she swiped her palms to the side.

That was her first step into a larger world.

The flames quivered before rising and then blew back away from her, as if cowering before her, their colour momentarily flashing to a shade of light blue. Yet they parted, leaving a clear, charred but no longer burning path before her.

Too dazed to process what had just happened and quickly deciding that she would examine the gift horse's mouth later as she saw more fire balls beginning to rain down on the hamlet from the sky, she ran down the cleared path back towards the river.

The mist was now replaced by smoke, as Mahita watched her hamlet, the only home she had known, burn. Flames rose up from the roofs of the huts and cottages on the other side of the river, as Mahita ran back towards the bridge, the smoke stinging her blood eyes.

By now she was actually crying. She hadn't cried in a long time, but this had just been a terrible, terrible day. She hadn't been about to die twice in in five minutes like this before. Her hamlet had never been attacked like this as long as she remembered. And she had never bended fire before… was that really what she had just done?

Firebenders… Firebenders were burning down the only place in the world she knew to be home. The Hamlet was defenseless simply because it had never been attacked, never by any of the Firebending Varnas, not like this. The Varnas were known to assault minor hamlets and villages to expand their influence and to procure manpower and slaves, but they had never ventured this far west before. Not that Mahita knew of.

Mahita, all her life, had been a humble servant, and her masters were all she had even if they weren't exactly warm in their behaviour. That sense of duty was what prompted her to go back, to make sure her lady and lord were alright, that they had survived the onslaught.

Yet she would never make it back, because the moment that the wooden rope bridge became visible again she saw the Firebenders, the Kshatriyas, descending the bridge to her side of the riverbank. The shirtless tribal warriors looked fearsome, the red war paint on their faces made even more terrifying by the burning cottages in their background.

"Ahh!" Mahita cried out when she saw them and took frightened step back, but they had seen her and there were too many soldiers here for even her to fight through, no matter how good a street fighter she was.

"Get her!" one of the Kshatriyas shouted, and another one's backhand found Mahita's face and her tiny village, her only home, being consumed by soot, smoke and dancing flames was the last thing she saw before her world blacked out.

The two Kshatriyas who stood over the unconscious girl stepped aside to make way for their leader, crouching on one knee as their Rajah, a middle-aged man with obsidian hair and equally dark eyes, tall, muscular and with his upper body in a waist coat but otherwise shirtless like the rest of them.

The Rajah stared at the downed girl, immediately identifying the patched rags she was dressed in as that of a servant. Yet, he neither failed to notice her youth nor her beauty. His son was old enough now, so the Rajah could gift her to him as a concubine - she could never become a wife to him of course, Untouchables from far-off villages weren't appropriate spouses for a prince of a warrior varna like their's. Though, if his son didn't express interest in the girl, then she could still sell for a high price in the slave market of Dehali. Or perhaps the Maharajah himself would be interested in a young maiden of exquisite beauty like her's.

"Lodge her with the other imprisoned slaves for now, but know that I have claimed her for my House and she is among my personal spoils. Ensure that she gets to my family's caravan unharmed," he ordered, and suddenly, the fires around them came to life, roaring towers of heat shooting into the sky, the magnificent display of Firebending serving its purpose to intimidate his subjects, reminding of just what he could do to them if they went out their way and tried to do anything to the girl behind his back.

"A-As you command, Rajah Agnimukha!"

* * *

 **Mahita's Dreamscape  
An Oasis, The Spirit World**

 _He (she?) remembered… the guilt, the remorse. What had he (she?) done? What had he (she?) set upon the world? No, he (she?) needed to fix this. Raava needed him. (Who is Raava?)_

 _He (she!?) remembered the way of the dragons, the fire of life, that he (she!) had been taught… The winds, Air, it was so freeing, unbound and chained, free to go wherever it wished…_

 _She (who?) was the one that brought Water and Earth. One calm and flowing, (cold…! I hate the cold!) and the other sturdy, unyielding, yet soft where necessary._

 _But even together, they could not defeat Chaos._

 _In order to defeat Chaos… they had to become Order…_

 ** _"We are bonded forever…"_**

 _Hundreds of voices erupted around him/her at once. All speaking, none coherent._

 _Like an old man in green, shouting, "We cannot defeat anyone if we keep slaying each other like this!"_

 _Hundreds of memories flooded his/her mind at once. A thousand delights, a million tears._

 _Like the young woman in blue, screaming, "Kinghes… you monster!"_

 _Hundreds of generations that he/she had known. Different peoples, but the same story._

 _Like an orange-clad monk's immortal wisdom, "You cannot overcome your enemy, until you overcome your self."_

 _For every success, hundreds of mistakes, hundreds upon hundreds of failures._

 _Like the regrets of a red-robed, dying, king, "I… couldn't bring balance…"_

 _The onslaught, the burdens, the pain, it was all too much. Almost a thousand spirits encircled her, as if vultures set loose upon her dead carcass, yet their presence was soothing, and even yet she was frightened. Those candescent white eyes that bespoke the power of eight hundred masters…!_

 ** _"… And we will never give up."_**

 _She fell to her knees, the water of the oasis splashing around her legs. She clutched her head, because it became too much._

 _She screamed._

 _"AAAAH!"_

* * *

 **The physical world  
Next morning, inside a tent  
Rajaputra Encampment, Fire Islands**

" _AAAAH_!"

Screamed straight into wakefulness, subconsciously struggling against her binds as her eyes, for but a moment after they opened, glowed white.

"What in the world?"

The boy's voice brought her back to reality, the glow fading from her eyes to reveal her natural, golden orbs. Golden orbs that proceeded to stare into the boy's inquisitive brown ones, a boy who was a little too close for comfort.

"GAH! Get away!" she yelled, rearing her head back and then slamming it into his nose as hard as she could.

"OW!" he stumbled backwards, holding the bridge of his nose tightly with his left hand and shooting her a death glare. "That hurt! Why'd you do that?!"

She got a good look at him. A boy about her age, a maroon bandana tied around his head pulling his short, but slightly spikey, black hair back. He had a heart-shaped face, a white complexion, an athletic but lithe build, a pair of brown eyes and a newly forming bruise in his nasal region. He was dressed in the traditionally red pajamas common around the Fire archipelago, and a full-sleeved black shirt, both thick and obviously made out of dyed koala sheep wool.

"I don't appreciate strange men IN MY FACE, you pervert!" Mahita shot back hotly.

He flinched, "Uh… right. I guess that was inappropriate… my bad. It's just, you were, uh…" he paused for a second, pointing at her face, "Your eyes were glowing. It was weird."

Mahita's scrunched up her nose in disgust at the boy, thinking he was lying, before giving him a deadpan expression. "I don't appreciate liars, either. Especially when they suck at it."

That got the boy mad, and for some reason elicited a victorious smirk out of Mahita. "Hey! I don't lie, and I don't suck at it either!"

Her smirk widened slightly. "But if you don't do it, how'd you know you don't suck at it?"

The boy smacked his face, "Ow!" before wincing at the resulting pang of pain from his still bruised nose.

Mahita turned her head down to stare at herself, as she recollected everything that had happened before she had fainted. Her heart sank when she saw her hands in binders, and she realised she was in a tent of sorts. A small one, for just one person or maybe two if they could snuggle in together. It was a light brown shade, with dark brown and red embroidered designs. She could spot a sleeping matt at her feet.

Those Firebenders… " _You_! What did you do to my village?!"

He seemed to sober up at that, staring at her with what was… was that pity? How dare he! "My uh… Dad decided we were running low on funds for our campaign against the Jatta varna, so he decided to raid a couple of the outlying villages…"

Her glare at him intensified, and he took a step back, holding his hands up in peace. "I'm sorry!" he said. "I hate it, but that's just the way things are! I tried to convince Dad not to go through with it but he said it was the only way!"

She kept up her glare, before tugging at the binds on her hands. "Let me go."

He glanced away from her face and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah. That's not a good idea…"

"Let me go, dangit!" she yelled, and he immediately held his hands up again in a placating gesture.

"Listen to me!" he said. "Look, all the prisoners we took, Dad is gonna have the males work to increase our manpower, and the females, of appropriate age, can be claimed by him or any of his soldiers. He's gonna sell everybody else at the next slave market, so if you don't wanna end up becoming living merchandise, don't say you wanna leave!"

She sneered angrily. "How _dare_ you?! You destroy my home, kidnap me and then you tell me to what, just stay with you?!"

"For now, yes!" He sighed. "You're giving me a headache…"

"You're giving _me_ a headache!" Mahita retorted, before falling silent and just giving him the death glare. Inwardly, she was judging his strength - he didn't appear to be that strong, and only her hands were tied. She could fight her way out of this, she knew she could.

"If it's any consolation, most of the people of your hamlet are here, alive and well…" he explained, and she listened wordlessly. "Look I don't like any of this, alright? Dad told me to take you as a concubine, but I don't think I'm ready for that kinda thing and I certainly won't do it without the other person's consent… you're safe here, I promise, so just stick around until we reach the sea and, I'll uh... I'll sneak you out at night, when it's dark, if you really wanna go back."

Her glare softened slightly, very slightly, at that.

"Just whatever you do, don't run," he moved closer to her, before reaching inside his black koala sheepskin shirt and pulling out a small, exquisitely carved dagger. The blade glinted in the slightly dim light of the tent. He crouched down and cut her binds off with it, the ebony-haired girl clenching and unclenching her hands before massaging each her sore wrists in turn.

He got up and took a few steps backwards, to near the entrance of the tent, as she stood up. There wasn't really enough space in here for the two of them anyways. Her legs were sore from how long they had been immobile.

"The name's Emad, by the way," he gave her a small, genuine smile. "What's yours?"

She kept glaring at him wordlessly, and he only sighed in response.

"Right…" he shook his head before pointing at a stack of red beside Mahita's feet. She glanced at it in surprise, not having noticed it before.

"Those are new clothes, I figured you'd want a proper set, at least…" he glanced at her rags with thinly veiled disgust. "Plus they'll help you blend in. I had a cousin of mine pick them out for you."

With that, he turned and began to exit the tent.

"Once you've changed, come along. I'll show you around the camp."

And he left.

For a few moments, Mahita just stood there. She got down and picked up the stack of red fabric, and gasped when she touched it. Koala sheepskin… her lady back in the village had owned a few sets. She could never have dreamed of wearing something so… warm!… like this in her life!

She stood there thinking for a few moments, before she decided to do as Emad had said. With the hand that she had been dealt, it was not like she could make anything productive out of staying in this tent all day.

And she would like nothing more than to get out of these threadbare rags and bask in the warmth of climate-appropriate clothes, for a change.

* * *

 **Outside the Tent  
Rajaputra Encampment, Fire Islands**

Emad was sitting on a wooden crate outside Mahita's tent, heating a smoking cup of green tea in his hands using his bending. Few things in the Universe could ever measure up to the delight that was a hot cup of green tea, brewed by one's own hands, on a cold misty morning in the Fire Islands.

The sixteen-year-old slurped in a sip, then heaved in a breath of the fragrant smoke, and sighed dreamily, all his worries forgotten.

"And don't think _anyone_ could _ever_ love you as much as I do!" he whispered dreamily to the cup, rubbing it adoringly in his hands.

* * *

 **Fifteen hundred years later  
The Jasmine Dragon**

It took fifteen centuries for those words to catch up to their target, but somewhere in the Jasmine Dragon, General Iroh suddenly had a huge, untamable urge to sneeze.

"'AAAA- ** _CHOOO_**!"

"Are you alright, Uncle?" came the inquiring voice of his scarred nephew, who was serving a couple of Earth Kingdom aristocrats seated at the other side of the traditional tea shop.

Iroh rubbed his nose weakly. "I wonder where that came from…"

* * *

 **Fifteen hundred years ago again  
** **Rajaputra Encampment, Fire Islands** **  
**

As he continued to lose himself in the heavenly drink, he heard a rustling sound behind him and smiled, beginning to turn his head around to glance in the direction of the tent behind him.

"So you finally decided to come-"

His words died in his throat at the sight before him.

Mahita stood before him, a portion of her hair over the vertex of her head raised up in a typical Fire Island top-knot held by a small golden band, with the rest of her ebony hair falling down to her shoulders. Dark red and scarlet alternated across her body, a red top covering her entire upper body and arms until just below her elbows, leaving most of her forearms bear. A frock-like lower garment hung over legs, red with maroon patches and going down to her shins. Her silver anklet was where it had always been, but for the first time in her life she wore shoes, and honestly it felt good not to have the cold ground pricking into you for once: comfortable, red, toe- and heel-baring flat sandals, with brown soles.

It was the traditiona garb of commoners in the Fire Islands, but free ones, not slaves. Emad didn't want her to think of herself as one, so he had gone out of his way to arrange that wardrobe for her. But - sweet dragons! - he thought with a red tinge on his cheeks, she was so prepossessing that she made even commoner garb look so… royal!

"If you're done staring…" Mahita snapped him out of his daze, and he coughed, blushing uncomfortably in embarrassment before turning around and pretending to sip his tea.

What Mahita wanted to do was gauge his eyes out, but this was the first time in her life that she had dressed up, and, well… a small part of her didn't actually mind the attention, for once. Even though she still blamed him (and his whole varna, by proxy) for ruining whatever small semblance of a life she had lived so far in no more than a single night.

No amount of warm koala sheepskin gifts could ever change that, after all.

Mahita looked around. All around her tents, red and maroon, were set up as a makeshift camp. She could see smoke rising up from behind the camp, locked in a battle of attrition against the morning mist.

"Come on then, I promised to show you around," Emad said, placing his empty tea cup on the crate he was formerly sitting on, and her stomach, noticing the drained cup, took that moment to loudly announce its presence.

"We'll grab food along the way," he said absently, not paying her embarrassed blush any mind.

* * *

There were around fifty to eighty tents throughout the camp that Emad taken her around, after fetching her a plate of decent breakfast from someone he knew. He had proffered the plate to her in exchange for learning her name, and she had obliged him that much at least. She was hungry, and it was just her name. It's not like he could steal that from her or anything.

Mahita realised the encampment was on the other side of the dormant volcano (she thought it was probably frozen over) that formed the centre of the island she lived on. As she walked around the encampment of the Rajaputra, she observed clear class differences: the ones dressed poorly, some of whom she recognised from her hamlet, were working for those who were either dressed more exorbitantly, or shirtless - the Firebenders, apparently, practiced using their own inner heat to keep themselves warm in the cold climate. That's why the warrior class didn't really wear shirts when in combat.

Seeing human beings like her being bossed around by other human beings like the former were merchandise owned by the latter was a sight that she knew should've sickened her. Yet, she realised that none of the… slaves… seemed troubled or overly uncomfortable. Most of them (but not all of them) like her had been given koala sheepskin outfits to wear. She had been pushed to do tougher work as a maidservant back in the Hamlet than they were doing now. At least most of them had warm clothes.

It was a temporary encampment, Emad had told her. The Kshatriyas, the Firebending warriors, were given time to rest by the Rajah - Emad's father, Agnimukha - after their 'successful' raid at Mahita's hamlet. That thought made Mahita sick again.

"We're the Rajaputra varna, the - self-proclaimed - noblest varna of Firebenders in the Fire Islands," Emad explained, walking ahead of her, and she looked at him. "We raid and enslave because we have to do it, it's the way of our people, all Firebenders. If we won't do it, someone will do it to us. But, unlike the Jatta and the Agha and the Kuhl varnas, we treat whoever we take humanely, with kindness. My father makes sure that when it comes to matters of justice there's no difference between a slave or a Kshatriya."

"So what you're saying is: you're all slavers, but not all of you are jerks," Mahita translated for him, an eye twitching in annoyance.

Emad flinched, scratching the back of his head, "I guess you could say that."

Then he stopped before a clearing in the middle of a camp.

"Ah, would you look at that. He's at it again," Emad commented dryly.

Mahita poked her head out from behind him to see a boy a little younger and shorter than Emad, though clearly resembling him with his short, spiky black hair and brown eyes, but shirtless like the adult Kshatriya standing some distance to his opposite. The young boy, who couldn't be older than twelve or thirteen, stood regally with his hands lit up in twin golden flames. Golden, because those fires were more brilliantly yellow than any Mahita had seen in her life - not even a shade of orange was visible in them.

It was then, that, for the first time since she had awoken, the repressed memory of her firebending a clear path for herself during the attack on her hamlet finally found its way to the crown of her thoughts. Eyes widening, her gold irises came down to stare at her palms. She had bended… and then, she remembered now, the fires had momentarily flashed blue.

Thoughts racing as she looked back up at the boy, she was fascinated by the grace and the power behind each of the boy's movements, which, despite his age and small frame were clearly superior to the adult facing him. She saw the two dance with each other in a blazing fury of flames, golden vs orange, overwhelming punches shooting concentrated blasts of heat and light, augmented and defended against by the powerful and swift, whirling, kicks.

Her eyes stared hungrily at the dancing flames. For some unknown and unexplainable reason, this fire battle seemed not only familiar to her, but enticing. She wanted to be a part of it, she…

"Hya!" the young boy shouted as he swiped both arms to the side to cancel a firespout launched by his opponent before kicking a furious wave of golden fire straight at him. Fear swelled up in the adult Kshatriya's widening eyes knowing he couldn't avoid the attack and would be burnt, and Mahita gasped, snapped out of her fascination at the boy's movements when she realised the other man was going to die.

Yet, instead of boiling him alive like it should have, Mahita watched in frightful fascination as the golden flames suddenly twisted around the man's body, forming a dragon's tail-like ring of gold fire, somehow appearing furious yet calm at the same time as it encircled the man slowly without ever harming him.

Before disappearing entirely.

"Hn?" the younger boy grunted, raising an eyebrow, as his opponent. Said firebender had hidden his face behind his arms to shield himself from the formerly approaching fire wave. He retracted his arms and looked back up, unable to believe that he was alive, and not a burnt crisp writhing on the ground in pain like he had expected himself to be.

His grateful eyes found Emad, of course, standing there in front of him, the calm but stern expression on his face belying the fact that he had obviously bended away the gigantic fire wave as easily as putting out a candle.

Both the adult Kshatriya and Mahita sighed in relief at Emad's intervention, before Mahita was filled a strange mixture of awe and fear.

That golden fire wave was huge… and Emad had not only channeled it into a ring but then made it disappear like it was nothing. How can a boy as casual and young as him be that strong?!

Then again, the boy who had created the fire in the first place was even younger than him.

"Are you alright?" Emad said, turning around to face the adult.

The Kshatriya crouched in a knee in a show of gratefulness. "Y-Yes, my Prince. Thank you for saving me life!"

"Why did you interfere in my fight, Emad?" the younger boy asked, voice laced with annoyance, as if someone had disturbed his afternoon nap.

Emad turned to him, voice calm yet stern. "How many times have I taught you restraint, little brother? This is a training spar, not an Agni Kai."

Mahita realised then. The resemblance. This was Emad's younger brother.

Not that she saw even a hint of respect in his eyes for his elder sibling.

"Hn," the younger boy sneered at him. "Don't pretend you're my teacher. I stopped learning from you years ago, when you stopped being useful. You're a wimp, and a traitor, Emad. Or have you forgotten what your leniency did to us?"

Emad visibly flinched, before a sad expression crossed his visage. Mahita came to stand by Emad's side then, and the younger boy's attention turned to her.

"Oh, is this your new whore? She looks awfully pretty for an Untouchable, but make sure she doesn't bear you too many children. I don't want there to be any problems like having get rid of too many contenders for the Raj when I succeed our father," he glared at Mahita, and she visibly recoiled at his insulting tone and words.

"What did you call me, you little piece of dragon moose shit?!" she shouted at him, golden eyes blazing, and he met her glare head on with a murderous one of his own.

"How dare you address _me_ , Crown Prince of the Rajaputra varna, in such a tone? Know your place, you filthy _**SLAVE**_!" the boy bellowed back, giving form to his rage by punching a fire ball at her. A standard, moderately sized orange one; weak fire, but enough to put a worthless slave in her place.

Eyes widening, Emad was about to intervene but the enraged Mahita moved as if a woman possessed. Mahita, purely out of reflex, pointed both palms at the two-foot wide ball of flame that was seconds away from searing her skin. In no longer than a moment, she crossed her arms over chest and then uncrossed them, palms facing towards the fire ball, thus dissipating it in a breath.

Emad, the adult Kshatriya behind Emad, and the boy, all stared in barely concealed shock.

" _You're_ a Firebender?" Emad voiced the thought on all their minds. Firebenders in the outer islands were unheard of.

Snapping out of her tantrum, Mahita realised precisely what she had just done. She stared at her hands, before looking back and forth between Emad and his brother twice.

She nodded slowly, "Apparently. I just found out yesterday, though."

Emad smacked his head. This was… impossible! Unbelievable!… Was he dreaming? Was this some nightmare?

He was brought out of his shock by his little brother's cackling laughter.

"What, Fahad?" Emad inquired, annoyed.

"An Untouchable who can Firebend! This is rich! So she's not a whore, but probably the bastard child of one from the hamlets who got in bed with a Kshatriya!" he laughed again, wiping a tear from his eyes.

The horrible insults being hurled at herself and her dead mother, and the boy, Fahad's, sickening laughter infuriated Mahita even further.

"What is your problem?!" she yelled back at him enraged, but Emad held her back by placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Let it go-"

"What? You look like you wanna prove you aren't a whore-child," Fahad taunted her, as the shirtless boy placed his fists on his hips. "Maybe if you beat me in an Agni Kai I'll concede that you probably aren't. But guess what? That isn't hap-pen-ning!" be sung out the syllables of the last word, fueling Mahita's rage further.

"Oh _yeah_?!" Mahita challenged back, and Emad realised where this was going. He tried to stop the girl but she went ahead and did it.

"I'll beat you in an Agni-whatever and shut that disgusting mouth of yours!"

'Oh why, oh why, did you go ahead and do it, you stupid girl? Do you want to die so badly?' Emad thought with his face in his palm, as he saw Fahad smirk and get into a firebending opening kata.

"Fahad, stop this," Emad commanded. "She isn't even a novice yet. What honour do you look for in defeating a slave that doesn't even know what a kata is?"

Fahad smirked. "To put you in your place, brother. You care _something_ for her, don't you?"

Mahita spared Emad a glance, who just huffed angrily.

"Besides, she just challenged me to an Agni Kai. In front of two witnesses," he pointed at Emad and the Kshatriya behind them. "Me, the Crown Prince of the Rajaputra varna! This cannot be undone, it must reach the logical conclusion! The law of _my_ father, and my grandfather and my great-grandfather before him demands it!"

Emad pinched the bridge of his nose, and Mahita suddenly felt a bit guilty about having trapping him in this situation without even thinking about it. She didn't know what the situation was, precisely, but apparently it was bad. For her most of all.

"If I propose a way out of this, my Princes," the elder, Emad and the younger, Fahad, turned look at the adult Kshatriya who spoke.

"Let Cousin Emad train the girl," he said, identifying his relationship to Emad, and Mahita's eyes widened at his proposal, "for a month. That way there's a _chance_ that she could at least… survive."

Mahita gulped at the emphasis the Kshatriya put on the word 'chance'.

Emad hummed to himself, rubbing his chin in thought, before looked at Mahita like he never had before. He had never stared directly at her, usually averting his gaze to not make her feel any uncomfortable than she already was. But now he was scrutinising at her, as if peering deep into her soul and sizing her up.

Apparently satisfied somehow, Emad then turned to Fahad questioningly.

Fahad scoffed, "What? You actually think…?" he laughed again. "Oh Emad, you fool. I'm of royal descent, of the noblest varna, and I've been bending fire since I could walk! If you think you can shape her up in a month so that she doesn't sweat herself dry in the after-heat of my flames, you're as stupid as you are soft."

His chest rose and fell in a condescending sigh. "Whatever. I am the Prince of the Rajaputra, we are known for our generosity. So I'll give you a month. We'll be back home by then anyways, so our whole village can witness the Agni Kai. Maybe you can train her enough to lose but entertain, at least."

With that, Fahad turned around and walked away, ignoring the murderous glare Mahita sent at his receding back.

"What is his problem?" she ground out through clenched teeth.

"He hates me," Emad responded, shaking his head, before looking at her. "And anyone remotely connected to me by extension. I'm sorry you got caught up in this, but what were you _thinking_ , going and challenging him to an Agni Kai like that?!"

"I… don't even know what that is!" Mahita protested. "Did you even _hear_ all the things he said about me, and about my dead parents? I wasn't gonna let that slide!"

"A death match, basically," Emad's cousin, the elder man, interjected, attempting to explain what an Agni Kai was. His tone much more casual now that the younger prince was gone. "Or a 'burn-to-near-death' match, if you survive."

"Which is how we hope you'll end up by the time I whip you into shape over the next month," Emad supplied, and Mahita paled at that.

She took a few seconds to process everything. Her stagnant, unchanging world had been literally turned sideways, overnight. For a moment she wondered if she pissed off a really cranky spirit somewhere, and it was haunting her and making her life crappy out of vengeance and spite.

She looked back at the two males. "But _why_ does he _hate_ you? He's your _brother_!"

Emad looked at his cousin, and sighed sadly, before turning around to go get all this off his shoulders somehow. Some Jasmine tea would do him good right about now.

" _Half_ -brother," he supplied over his shoulder, grief palpable in his tone. "Same father, different mothers… and he hates me, because I killed _his_ mother."

Mahita's eyes shot open as her breath died in her throat.

* * *

 **To be continued. Also, I could use a beta reader for this down the road if anyone's interested. Constructive criticism, and any suggestions or ideas, are all appreciated.**


End file.
